


Breaking Free.

by orphan_account



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale is an undercover cop., Aziraphale’s books, Crowley is wrongfully accused of murder, Human AU, Jailbreaks, M/M, Prison AU, The Bentley - Freeform, bank robberies, houseplants
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-03-01 05:55:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 3,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18794326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Ezra Fell is a rising-star detective with an incredible nose for justice. Anthony J. Crowley languishes in prison, accused of first-degree murder.The two should never have met. But all of that changes when Ezra gets assigned to work undercover in the city’s most terrifying prison...(And yes, I had no choice but to write this.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a thing I wrote at 3am on a caffeine high. I might continue it, I might not. Enjoy.
> 
>  
> 
> Disclaimer; I don’t own the characters. I wish I did. The plot of this is mine, however. And this is an AU, so please ignore any details about the U.K. justice system/police force/prisons that could be wrong. I do my best to make it as nice and accurate as possible.
> 
> Triggers; strong language, dark themes, crime, gore, violence.,

The email arrives just as he returns from a smoke break, and he brushes a few stray particles of tobacco-ash from his sleeve. 

 

That was cheap cigarettes for you. The ash got everywhere. 

 

He took a sip from the mug of lukewarm hot chocolate on his desk, a crease appearing between his eyebrows as he eyed the sticky stain it left on the antique mahogany.

 

Ezra Fell had been on the police force for a while now. He’d joined just after leaving school at 18; back in the days before you needed a Criminology degree before you could even get through the door. It’s been ages since he left the Academy in Suffolk, and he’d transferred to the Met after a year in some tiny police station in the middle of nowhere. 

 

If things went his way, he’d get a promotion to DI soon. At 29, he’d be one of the youngest in history. 

 

Working in London was always stressful, but this month had been calm, all things considering. He’d helped tackle a spate of burglaries near Southwark, and had been on the scene at an (accidental) death near Canary Wharf. 

 

He shuddered. The deaths were always nasty. At least this one hadn’t been too messy. 

 

Taking his glasses from his pocket, he slips them onto his nose to read the email. 

He paused. Read it again. 

 

Ezra’s frown became a little more prominent. He needed another cigarette.


	2. Chapter 2

Undercover work. 

It’s definitely not ideal. Not in the slightest. After an hour of being briefed (Read: lectured) by his superiors, he’s allowed to leave, a Manila file in hand. 

They’d wanted to E-mail him a copy. As an officer of the old school, he prefers to keep his records on paper. 

(He’d done his training before computers had become widespread.) 

If he can get the job done, the promotion he’s after is in the bag. The downside is that it’s a high-stress situation, and a lot of things are on the line. His life, for example. 

Ezra remembers an officer he’d once talked to, a rather short and unpleasant bloke by the name of Ligur. The poor sod had taken a position undercover in a drug-smuggling ring and hadn’t come back. They found him in the Thames a few weeks later, with a pair of concrete shoes. 

His face whitens. 

If he’s lucky, his own situation isn’t quite as drastic. He only has to infiltrate a prison. 

But it’s a prison known in the circles he runs in as “Hell.” A category A. 

A place he’s heard horror stories about since before he joined the Force. 

He can always reject the post; maybe leave his job altogether and open a bookshop somewhere. He’s been on the beat a long time; he’s allowed to tire of it. 

But leaving would just mean that some other unfortunate bugger would have to do the job. He thinks back to some of the others he’s worked with; not much more than teenagers, fresh out of Probationary Training. Could he really condemn one of them to that? 

He knows his answer.


	3. Chapter 3

He’s let his hair grow a little longer, the mousy curls no longer neatly-combed. He hasn’t shaved for a few days. There are bags under his eyes from nights awake, worrying. 

He eyes himself worriedly in the mirror. It looks like he’s let himself go. They couldn’t say he didn’t look the part. It’s bad enough that he doesn’t have an alias.

Apparently he’s not well-known enough to warrant one.

He has a basic backstory; he’s apparently being imprisoned for burglary, obstructing the course of justice and contempt of the court. 

The thought scares him. If news of his occupation gets out, he’s as good as dead. If there’s one thing the criminal masses hate more than a copper, it’s a crooked copper. It feels wrong to think of himself as being on the wrong side of the thin blue line. 

It hurts. 

He knows it’ll hurt more when they handcuff him. They won’t be starting this whole charade until he’s on the prison shuttle. 

He has a few hours at most. A few more hours of freedom. 

Ezra has all the information he needs. According to his superintendent, (a pompous git called Metatron, of all things!) there are a few prisoners who the powers that be find worrying. He has to gather as much intel as he can.

He already has a tentative plan. He just had to keep his head down. Remain inconspicuous. 

He tells himself that it’ll work, but he’s not quite sure.


	4. Chapter 4

Ezra’s heart is nearly beating out of his chest when he arrives at the prison. It’s a large, granite-grey building; blackened by years of exposure to exhaust fumes and pollution. There are numberless windows, each one tiny; all of them barred. 

He feels physically ill at the sight. 

The guard who sits opposite him is not unsympathetic. Although her face is carefully blank, he can tell that she has some compassion for him. 

He can tell; she had been gentle when she and another officer had ‘cuffed him. The click of metal on metal had felt like the pronouncement of a death sentence.

He feels like a man going to the gallows. He’d like nothing more than to run. 

And he’s forced to move forward; and is processed. A wristband with his name and number is clipped around his wrist. He hands over his belongings; sheds his comfortable old clothes and is given a washed-out blue shirt and a pair of soft grey tracksuit-bottoms. There’s a pair of trainers too; half-a-size too big. 

He can’t find his voice to complain about it. 

Hopefully, after his things have been checked and double-checked, every item catalogued, he’ll get them back. Ezra knows that this isn’t standard practice; but the powers that be had somehow managed to pull some strings.

And he’s led down a clean, cold corridor; towards a little cell on the medical wing. They’re keeping him as far apart from the other inmates as they can. He’s a little bit grateful; but something tells him he’s still eventually going to be found out. It’s inevitable. 

He has a little locker for clothes and other items; plastic cutlery; a toothbrush, a disposable (nearly-blunt) razor, a sliver of a soap-bar. There’s a basin and other facilities, and he’s unsurprised to see that the privacy is minimal. He’s alone in the wing at the moment; the other current residents are obviously fit enough to venture outside for the hour of free-time they’re allowed. He’s been allowed to keep his books after they’d been checked, and he puts the rare first-editions safely in the locker. 

Ezra flops down onto the lumpy bed, choking back a sudden wave of fear and resignation. 

He looks up at the ceiling; the light flickers. On a ceiling-tile is a rusty spot that looks suspiciously like a bloodstain. 

With that thought, it all comes flooding back, and his eyes water as he’s violently sick into the toilet.


	5. Chapter 5

The majority of the staff and all of the inmates don’t know about his status as an officer of the law. He can count on one hand the number of people that do. 

As far as he knows; because the hour of recreational time has been and gone; he’s the only resident of the Med Wing. The prison’s doctor, a woman about ten years younger than him, with black hair, had introduced herself to him a while ago. 

“I’m doctor Device.” She’d said. “Most people call me Anathema, though. Feel free to do so if you want, Mr Fell.”

She’d seemed nice.

He’s pacing the cell. From the tiny barred window he can see the road; freedom so close that it’s sickening. It’s ten paces deep, fifteen across. The walls are approximately two-hundred-and-fifty centimetres high. There are eighteen tiles on the ceiling and nine mysterious stains in the flooring. Some look like vomit, others like things he doesn’t want to think about. 

He wonders if anyone’s ever died in this cell, and hurriedly back-pedals away from the morbid path his thoughts are taking.

He’s only been here less than a day, and he already fears for his sanity. 

Ezra’s stomach rumbles, and he wishes for the millionth time that he’d eaten something more substantial than a bagel before leaving the house. He looks out into the corridor; the interior window is wide and made of wire-reinforced plexiglass; presumably so the medical staff can keep an eye on the cell’s occupant.

Except they don’t call them cells here. They call them Rooms, as if this was some nightmarish hotel. 

If it was, he’d leave them zero stars on TripAdvisor. 

There’s a rattling, and he freezes, trying to identify the sound. Another inmate is walking up the corridor, wheeling some sort of trolley in front of him. The man is shorter that him, with a curtain of greying, greasy hair hanging over his eyes. He has what sounds like a nasty smoker’s cough. 

There are cleaning supplies on the trolley, a mop and a bucket hung on a hook. The man is grumbling under his breath, and Ezra’s eyes land on a covered paper plate. He can smell food, and his mouth waters. 

The man stops near his cell, slides open a little hatch in the wall, and pushes the plate through the gap and onto a little table set under the window. 

Ezra jams his thumb into the hatch, stopping it from sliding shut again.   
“Excuse me?” He asks, tentatively. 

“What, ye great southern pansy?” The man grumbles. His accent is a strange mix of “angry scotsman” and “mildly-irritated Yorkshire sheep farmer.”

“Could I have a drink please?”

The other inmate grumbles but hands over a polystyrene cup.

“Use th’ basin. Water’s safe. Are you a copper?” 

Ezra is shocked, to say the least.  
“No!” He splutters, face reddening. “Of course not!”

The man nods.   
“‘S alright then. The name’s Shadwell.”  
And he walks away, trolley rattling. 

Ezra takes the plate, feeling like an animal on display at a zoo. He lifts off the paper towel covering it. 

On the plate is a large amount of lumpy mashed potato, some congealing baked beans, and a burnt sausage that at least looks a little edible. The food is stone-cold, and when he goes to take a forkful of potato the brittle plastic utensils snap into sharp white shards. 

Suddenly he doesn’t feel so hungry.


	6. Chapter 6

When he next sees the doctor, he asks about Shadwell.

“Don’t mind him.” Anathema says. “He asks everyone that. He’s harmless, really.”

Ezra isn’t so sure.

He’s snapped out of his thoughts by a ruckus in the corridor; and there’s a shout. Anathema hurries off to deal with it, and he lies back on his bunk and stares at the ceiling again. 

He’d have to ask them to fix that light. It’s going to do his head in, sooner or later. 

Dr. Device returns quickly, pulling a wild-haired man- not an inmate- along by the elbow. He struggles to hear what’s going on as the man is led into a treatment room, and hesitantly sits on an examination table.

Ezra watches from the corner of his eye as the man shows the doctor a nasty burn on his palm, and she fetches a basin of ice water to try and soothe it. The man is wearing a comfortable shirt and a pair of jeans with dusty knees. A screwdriver is tucked behind his ear, a torch poking out of his front pocket. Ezra adjusts his glasses.

Clipped to the man’s belt is an ID proclaiming him to be Newton Pulsifer, a visiting Contract Electrician. Logic tells Ezra that he’d been working on something in another wing and injured himself. 

Ezra sighs and turns away from the window. He look at his books; running a finger along the spines before deciding against reading. 

These books are all he has at the moment. He grudgingly decides to save them for later. 

He’s bored, so bored. He’s been here two days now, and apart from the required daily phone call to the Correspondence Officer who is recording anything he finds out, nothing is happening. 

He loses hope of getting out of here anytime soon. 

There are whispers that he’ll have to be moved onto the main wing soon. Apparently Shadwell had started telling people about ‘the southern pansy in Medical” and the other inmates are getting suspicious. He hasn’t seen Shadwell since that first day: Anathema had been getting his food for him. 

He hadn’t eaten a lot. It was awful, and he’d only managed half a dry slice of toast at breakfast. 

There are bags under his eyes. Nobody had fixed that blasted light, and it didn’t get turned off at night. He’d had to bury his head under the thin pillow and duvet to try and get any semblance of sleep. 

And at night he could hear them- the shouts of his fellow residents, threats and accusations and oaths screamed in the darkness. It’s loud and unnerving. The inmates call to each other like birds trapped in an aviary, and it echoes down the still corridors. The night wardens who shuffle wearily past don’t ever try and stop it. 

The place is aptly named. This is Hell.


	7. Chapter 7

“You need to use the showers, Mr. Fell.” Anathema tells him when she brings his breakfast the next day. “Medical residents get an earlier time-slot to avoid the rush. The warden’ll be here soon to escort you.”

“Thanks.” He mutters. “And, please, my name is Ezra. Mr Fell is my father.”

Anathema hums, and walks away. Ezra rummages in his locker for a towel and a change of clothes. 

They’d finally given him back his things, and the first thing he’d done was use the basin to freshen up. It didn’t really compare to a hot shower, though. 

He’ll have the shower block to himself, at least. He hums happily, picking out a comfortable jumper and grabbing his bar of soap.

There is a knock at the door. A warden opens it; her security card says that her name is Marjorie Potts. She’s grey-haired and stern, but there is a kind look on her face. 

“Mr. Fell? Could you follow me, dear?”

Ezra nods, and walks slowly out of the door. The warden winks at him. 

“They only sent me. Said that you’re trustworthy enough not to leg it.”

He gives a noncommittal shrug, and she continues chattering.

“They said, ‘you go and get that prisoner 4004 on your own, he’s a nice one, won’t give you any trouble.’”

Ezra decides that he rather likes her; she fills the awkward silence. He thinks himself lucky that so far the staff have all been civil and polite, if not outright friendly. 

“I heard that that Newt Pulsifer went and got himself hurt again.” She rambles. “He’s a good lad. A rubbish electrician- I have no idea where he got his qualifications- but he does his best. I know his Mum, you see. She lives up in Dorking.”

Ezra keeps walking and stays silent. They arrive at the shower-block, and Marjorie signals that she’ll wait outside.

Internally, he breathes a sigh of relief. She may be pleasant company, but the warden could probably talk the hind legs off a donkey. 

He enjoys his shower and returns to his cell, feeling refreshed. He makes his phone call, reads a few pages of Great Expectations, and writes a letter home.   
The boredom is setting in again; he just wants someone to talk to, and that desire wars with the instinct to stay hidden.


	8. Chapter 8

It was just his luck when, a few hours later, Anathema visited. 

“Bad news, I’m afraid. You’re being transferred to Wing Six tomorrow. Your superior’s just been on the line. Long story short, he needs more info, so you’re moving.”

Ezra sighs. “I should probably pack up my stuff, then, I suppose.”

“And you won’t be able to keep a lot of your things.” She says, somewhat sheepishly. “It’s higher security there. I’m sorry, but things like your razor will have to go.” 

“I’m not growing a beard!” He said, aghast. He’d tried once, hoping it would help him gain some respect at the Academy. Instead, he’d simply looked ridiculous. He’d been a fresh recruit, and the jokes aimed at his person had doubled until he’d shaved the damn thing off.

Anathema sighed. “I didn’t say they’d stop you from shaving.” She consoled him, “Only that you wouldn’t be able to keep the razor with you. Safety and all that.”

“I assume I’ll be sharing a cell with someone?” 

The doctors checked her clipboard. “Yeah. Prisoner 1666. Anthony Crowley. I’ve had him in here a few times. He’s not as much of a bastard as some of the others.”

“Brill.” Ezra grumbles.


	9. Chapter 9

Ezra finds himself in cell F-6 only a few hours later. His cellmate; Crowley; is absent; probably enjoying another day’s recreation time.

This room is slightly larger than the ones on the medical wing. The two rickety beds sit at opposite ends of the room; they have uncomfortable grey blankets and itchy, thin polyester pillows. There’s a toilet hidden behind a screen, and a wash-basin, and a bar of soap sits next to it, on top of a soft red washcloth. 

The walls are bare, blue-pained concrete, and the light glows a dim yellow-white, stripes of sunlight painting the walls through the window-bars. 

The few furnishings in the room are tired and worn; there’s two little lockers and a small radio, a little electric kettle plugged into the wall. The only thing that looked remotely lively was a spider-plant in a little terracotta pot beneath the window, its leaves lush and green. A plastic Sainsbury’s plant mister stood beside it. 

Ezra put his books in his locker, unpacked the meagre few possessions he’d been allowed to keep, and sat down to write in his diary. Soon, however, the poetic words were scribbled over, a drawing taking their place. A sketch of a songbird in a cage. 

At that point, the door swung open. 

In sauntered a tall, suave-looking bloke; Ezra noticed his dark, messy hair and high cheekbones immediately. He was dressed immaculately, his face was tanned, and his eyes hidden by dark glasses. 

Ezra stood. “You must be Crowley.” He said. 

Crowley ignored him, instead choosing to flop dramatically on the vacant bed, and the detective rolled his eyes. 

“Fine. Unsociable prat.” He muttered under his breath, and picked up his copy of Paradise Lost.


	10. Chapter 10

Maybe an hour later, Crowley stirred.   
“Ugh.” He said. “Sorry. Bad day.”

“That much is obvious.” Said Ezra, rolling his eyes. “Anyone’d think you’re a sulky teenager.”

“So, yeah, you were right. I’m Anthony Crowley.” Said Crowley, “But most people just call me Crowley.”

“Ezra Fell.” Said Ezra. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” 

“Ditto.”   
Crowley stood from his seat on the bed. He wore a dress-shirt with his sleeves rolled up to the elbows and his top button undone, and a pair of black slacks with snakeskin shoes. It was so at odds to Ezra’s disheveled appearance that the brunet had to raise an eyebrow.

Crowley eyed him defensively, stretched, and walked over to the kettle. 

“Tea? Coffee?” He asked, arching an eyebrow above the sunglasses.

“Tea, please.” Said Ezra, frowning a little. As Crowley busied himself with the kettle, he sighed, his curiosity piqued.

“So, um, Crowley.” He mumbled, trying not to let his anxiousness show. “If it’s not terribly rude of me, what did you do to end up here?”

There was silence, and then a wet thump as a polystyrene cup of tea hit the ground


End file.
